0000000000056529
AUTHOR
Massimiliano Vatiero
showing 11 related works from this author
On John Bates Clark's “Naive Productivity Ethics”: A Note
2023
Abstract This article explores in detail the reactions among American economists to John Bates Clark's famously controversial claim that the marginal productivity theory of factor pricing and distribution is necessarily just. The general debate around Clark's “naïve productivity ethics,” as George Stigler sharply called it, transcended the then existing distinctions within the discipline and involved figures of virtually all theoretical and ideological persuasions—from prolabor progressives such as Richard T. Ely to staunch conservatives such as Thomas Nixon Carver. Our reconstruction reveals that, contrary to several standard historical accounts, for American early twentieth-century margin…
Wesley Clair Mitchell and the “Illiberal Reformers”: A Documentary Note
2021
In this note we inquire whether Mitchell as a reformer ever expressed concern over the biological quality of individuals and whether he did somehow share the Progressive Era faith in eugenics as an instrument for improving American society’s health, welfare, and morals. This is an aspect of Mitchell’s thought that has received scant attention in the literature and that projects him into the current debate on progressivism.
Frank H. Knight on Social Values in Economic Consumption. An Archival Note
2020
This note reproduces an unpublished paper on "Social Values in Economic Consumption" which Knight prepared for the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Summer Conference, on Nantucket, Massachusetts in June 1931. This paper sheds new light on Knight in two important respects. First, it presents, in a more systematic fashion, Knight’s criticism of what he perceived to be the then standard theory of consumption. Specifically, Knight argued that an individual's consumption is dictated more by his income in relation to others than by mere utility maximization — a notion now commonly known as relative income hypothesis. In this connection, Knight also pointed out that a general increase in inc…
Frank H. Knight on social values in economic consumption: an archival note
2020
We reproduce an unpublished address on “Social Values in Economic Consumption” which Knight prepared for a SSRC Conference in June 1931. This material sheds new light on Knight in two respects. First, anticipating what is known as the relative income hypothesis, Knight indicated that a general increase in income, not only leaves the individual’s relative position in society unaltered but makes her/his situation worse off due to the peculiar characteristics of the market for “personal services.” Second, this address provides further evidence of how, in spite of some substantial methodological differences, Knight’s research interests converged with those of the institutionalists.
Beyond Legal Relations: Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's Influence on American Institutionalism
2011
This paper documents Hohfeld’s influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maurice Clark. They regarded Hohfeld’s contribution on jural relations as a preliminary step toward the understanding of the adversarial nature of legal rights. Albeit with substantial differences in style, method and emphasis, Hohfeld’s schema provided a powerful analytical and rhetorical tool for their analysis This paper documents Hohfeld's influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maur…
On Simon Nelson Patten’s Progressivism: A note
2020
This article is an attempt to offer an assessment of the main coordinates of Simon Nelson Patten’s views on democracy and biological determinism. This will allow us to better delineate the differences—as well as the affinities—between Patten and the core of progressives discussed by Thomas C. Leonard in a series of path-breaking contributions, culminating in his Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. It is our contention that even within the persisting intricacies, ambiguities, and contradictions of Patten’s expository style, it is possible to trace a shift in some aspects of his ideas—a gradual evolution that makes his peculiar brand of progress…
Positional goods and social welfare: a note on George Pendleton Watkins’ neglected contribution
2018
Watkins's analysis of adventitious utility contains many aspects that are connected to the contemporary debate on positional goods. First, Watkins adventitious utility emerges from a process of social exclusion and can create negative externalities, in the sense that positive consumption of one individual implies negative consumption by another individual. Not only it creates negative externalities on other individuals, but it can initiate a race-to-the-bottom, where individuals waste an increasing amount of money on goods which do not possess any real utility.
Frank W. Taussig and Carl S. Joslyn on the Social Origins of American Business Leaders: A Chapter in the History of Social Science at Harvard
2019
In their 1932 volume "American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification," Frank W. Taussig and Carl S Joslyn, then a young Harvard graduate, argued that success in business depended more on innate superiority than on other environmental factors such as financial aid, influential connections, and formal education. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main contentions of Taussig and Joslyn, as well the intellectual genesis of, and the general reactions to, this controversial volume. Although our main focus is on Taussig and Joslyn, other figures, all directly affiliated with Harvard, will play a decisive role in our narrative—the economist Thomas Nixon Carver, …
A Joint Reading of Positional and Relational Goods
2012
Both relational and positional goods are based upon an idea of joint consumption – though with opposite signs. Indeed, in both cases, individuals’ consumption choices take into account not only the individuals themselves, but others, as well. Given that relational goods provide a form of identity to their consumers, we show that a certain degree of positionality emerges within the consumption of relational goods. Analogously, except in a two-agent context, each positional good also has a relational component. What emerges is a complex structure of economic outcomes based on both relational and positional motives.
A joint reading of positional and relational goods
2013
Both relational and positional goods are based upon an idea of joint consumption - though with opposite signs. Indeed, in both cases, individuals' consumption choices take into account not only the individuals themselves, but others, as well. Given that relational goods provide a form of identity to their consumers, we show that a certain degree of positionality emerges within the consumption of relational goods. Analogously, except in a two-agent context, each positional good also has a relational component. What emerges is a complex structure of economic outcomes based on both relational and positional motives.
Does brick size matter? Albert G. Keller on another QWERTY story
2023
In his seminal ‘‘Clio and the Economics of Qwerty’’, Paul David indicates Thorstein Veblen’s famous discussion of the British system of coal rail haulage as an intellectual antecedent to the idea of lock in. This note documents how Albert G. Keller, a Yale sociologist contemporary of Veblen, had presented a similar argument in connection to the establishment of a brick tax in England and its effects on the size of bricks. Like Veblen, Keller used this illustration to emphasize the inertia exercised by certain institutional conditions.